All Augustinian Guild Cards enroll the person in the Augustinian Guild
of the Province of St. Saint Augustine. The Perpetual card enrolls an
individual for perpetuity. The other cards serve as an enrollment for one
year.
People who make contributions for The Province of St. Augustine Guild
Mass cards are included in the community prayers and Guild Mass Intentions of all
communities in our Order. The contributed funds are used to support
Augustinian seminarians, Augustinians in limited service, Augustinian
missionaries, and Augustinian ministries needing financial assistance.
The Augustinian Guild Perpetual Enrollment card, with a
Mother of Good Counsel painting inlaid in a bound cover,
states that the enrollee will be remembered, for perpetuity,
in the prayers of the friars of the Province of St.Augustine.
Bl. Stephen Bellisini, OSA, (d. 1840) was the first pastor to be
beatified by the Church in recognition of his pastoral care of the
sick. He died of the plague while caring for his parishioners at the
Shrine of Our Mother of Good Counsel, Genazzano, Italy.
In his Confessions, Augustine praises his mother Monica saying:
"I will not pass over anything that my soul brings forth concerning
that servant of your who brought me forth from her flesh to birth
in this temporal light, and from her heart to birth in light eternal."
Even the smallest Augustinian wants to join the enroller in
wiahing you God's Blessings on this anniversary of your birth.
This beautiful cross is inspired by the opening lines of St. John's
Gospel, which led St. Augustine to meditate upon the Mystery of the
Trinity, Source of Wisdom. The principal symbols are Lady of Wisdom —
Sophia on the left, holding the earath in her protective mantle,
Jesus, our Crusified Redeemer, the Word made Flesh, and
Augustine on the right, trying to probe the depth of this Divine Truth.
(Painted by Edward Ruscil, 1993)
The Prayer to Our Mother of Good Counsel
I turn to you, Our Mother of Good Counsel, as I seek to imitate
your faith-filled life. May I be led by the same Wisdom which God
sent forth from heaven to guide you along unfamiliar paths and through
challenging decisions. Keep my mind and heart united with Your Son's
as I go forward in joyful hope toward the grace-filled freedom that
St. Augustine recommends. O Virgin Mother of Good Counsel, hear
my prayer as I look to you for guidance. Pray for me to our loving and
merciful Father, to your Son, Our Lord Jesus, the Christ, and to the
Holy Spirit, Given of all Wisdom,one God, forever and ever. Amen.
"As often as you did it for one of
my least ones, you did it for Me."
Matthew 25:40
Artist Pax Nidorf depicts St. Augustine
expressing thanks to God when he wrote:
"Your love pierced my heart like an arrow."
Confessions 9,2,3
Augustine praises the efficacy of his mother Monica's prayers
for his conversion: "My Mother, a God-fearing, sensible widow,
never at any time ceasing her resounding prayers to You for me.
Her pleas found their way into Your Presence…to You, the
Fount of all Mercy, she redoubled her prayers and tears, imploring
You to make haste to my help and enlighten my darkness."
In his Confessions, Augustine writes that both
Monica and himself experienced ecstacy with God
at the same time. This extraordinary event is the only
recorded experience of a dual ecstacy.
"Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of
the Holy Spirit within you, who you have from God?"
Therefore the bodies also of the married are holy,
so long as they keep faith in one another and to God
and that this sanctity of either of them…profits the other.
St. Augustine, "Of the Good of Marriage"
"May your love grow richer and richer…"
Philippians 1:9
"If children come, we cannot help but love them."
Confessions of St. Augustine, 4.2.2
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